Beijing cannot understand why Moscow allowed the Dalai Lama to visit Russia, a Chinese government spokeswoman said on Tuesday, and accused Tibet’s spiritual leader of attempting to split China, the Reuters news agency reports.
The Dalai Lama started his first visit to Russia in 10 years on Monday despite objections from China, which sees the spiritual leader as a symbol of Tibetan separatism.
“The Dalai Lama is a political exile who engages in activities splitting China under a religious cloak,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told a news conference.
“The Chinese side opposes the Dalai Lama engaging in any form or means of activities in any country with diplomatic relations with China,” she said.
Russia’s Interfax news agency said the Dalai Lama arrived in Elista, the capital of the predominantly Buddhist region of Kalmykia in southern Russia, on Sunday on a chartered flight from the Indian city of Amritsar.
The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after an abortive uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had previously refused to grant him a visa, saying it could affect Russian-Chinese relations.
Itar-Tass news agency said no meetings with Russian officials had been planned for the Dalai Lama. Interfax said that only leaders of Kalmykia’s one-million-strong Buddhist community met him at the airport.
Kalmykia’s president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has invited the Dalai Lama every year since 1996 and threatened to take the Russian government to court, saying its refusal to admit him is a violation of his people’s religious rights.
Kalmyk Buddhists want the Dalai Lama to consecrate a new monastery to replace those destroyed by the Soviet government, which deported the Kalmyk people to Siberia and Central Asia for allegedly helping Germany in World War Two.
Buddhists also live in the Siberian regions of Buryatia and Tuva. Ilyumzhinov has said he expects 100,000 pilgrims to come to Kalmykia to see the Dalai Lama.
Russia made clear his visit did not imply any recognition of the Dalai Lama’s desire for Tibetan autonomy, after Chinese troops entered in 1950.
